It was many moons ago when I was still living in the Okanagan, that Sarah and Murray Bancroft invited me to their guest house in Kaleden, BC to hear about their new project, Birch Block.

Their goal was tout droit - make wine from honestly farmed grapes. It just so happened there was an adorable A-frame on the property they were able to repurpose as a guest house they now rent on Air BnB (book early, it sells out quickly) .

Quantities are small, and much of their releases are sold only in magnum (generally allocated to restaurants). As of late, they’ve been dipping their toes into the RTD category, releasing canned rosé and piquette.

I had the chance to speak with co-partner Sarah recently on how their foray into winemaking has transpired.

LM: How did you and Murray meet?

SB: We actually kind of met twice. First we met one spring evening at the political science honours reading room at UBC. SO nerdy. He was looking for a friend, carrying a Vespa helmet, and I answered the door. That summer we camped across France on a motorbike.

Murray stayed in France and I came back to do my Master’s and we lost touch for 6 years. Then one day I was having dinner with my parents at a restaurant on Bowen Island where they lived. The chef sent down a Kir Royale – my favourite drink. Turned out the chef was Murray and it was a set up by my mom. She got a lot of thank-you’s at the wedding.

LM: Wine is a notoriously expensive and extremely challenging industry to enter - why did you launch Birch Block with this in mind?

SB: Yes, everyone warned us that wine is a capital intensive industry. It’s a slow burn. We did buy our property from the bank (it was a foreclosed llama farm) about a year before land prices started skyrocketing, luckily. I’ve done a start-up before (in digital media) so know the perils of cashflow, so we try to find all the efficiencies we can, sharing staff and equipment with neighbours and friends. But we still think the rewards outweigh the risks—as long as they’re calculated.

LM: What's the significance of Birch Block?

SB: We had a big stand of white birch on the top vineyard block along the road. Ironically, all the birch in the Okanagan caught a disease this year, so it went to the chopping block. Now it’s a beautiful stack of firewood for the pizza oven.

LM: What are some of your favourite wine, food and travel memories?

SB: We got a guide to take us to the camel market in Morocco. They had these Berber tents where you sit on the floor at a little charcoal grill and you go buy your meat and grill it with argan oil and salted bread and musicians play the lute. My daughters and I were the only women in the entire place.

That same year Murray remembers convivial late night diners during vendange in Bordeaux with the team at Ormiale. Harvest coincides with hunting season there so they ate homemade wild boar terrine with beautiful bottles from Ormiale and nearby Château Le Peuy.

LM: What's your least favourite part about the wine industry and what are some suggestions to overcome it?

SB: Shipping wine is too expensive and we have to absorb the cost for restaurants and retail which eats up most of our margin. Consumers have come to expect free or subsidized shipping, too. Maybe the WeWork folks will come back from Israel and solve the shipping problem for North America with drones or light rail.

LM: What wineries in Canada are on your radar?

At this year’s Noir Fest at Averill Creek we drank some delicious pinots from across Canada. On our radar are Anthony Buchanan, Else and Lightning Rock from B.C., Thomas Bachelder from Ontario and Benjamin Bridge from Nova Scotia.

LM: Tell me about your background and how it eventually led you to where you are now.

SB: Murray still works as a chef and both of us have spent a lot of time travelling in France and being around wine. Murray has been making wine as a garagiste since his 20s, and both of us grew up going to the Okanagan in the summers and love the desert, so it was almost inevitable.

LM: Who in your opinion are some of the best and brightest in the industry at the moment?

SB: It’s great to see so many women taking big swings and making bold moves from Arianna Occhipinti in Sicily to all the female winemakers, cidermakers, viticulturalists and wine club operators (shout out to Crushable Club, Vin Van and APÉRO Maude).

LM: What's been in your glass these days?

Bubbles of all kinds, mostly pét-nat, crémant, and piquette. It’s side-stripe shrimp season in B.C. so we can’t help it.

Learn more about Birch Block here.

Birch Block Vineyard: foreclosed llama farm turned winery

Vin Van: The pop up you need to know in Vancouver

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